Latest Interviews

To say David Ellefson has Jackson is his blood is no exaggeration. Born in the small town of Jackson, Minnesota, Ellefson was drawn to the bass immediately. Over the course of his musical career, Ellefson has inspired many budding musicians to take up the bass guitar.

Lzzy Hale signed up for the rock and roll lifestyle at age 13. Now fronting and getting loud on guitar with Halestorm, Hale is just about as rockin’ as they come. With a new album at the top of the charts, the band is in full on touring mode, and it don’t get better than this.

Guitarist Nick Catanese — or the “Evil Twin” as he is known to the legions of Black Label Society fans — has been a member of the band for 16 years now. What started as a side project of sorts for Zakk Wylde has grown into an extremely successful machine. Catanese has the task of keeping up with Wylde’s guitar pyrotechnics night in and night out on stage.

When the book is closed on Metallica and the final history written, you won't find the word "unambitious" anywhere. In fact, with a busy European festival season nearly behind them, their own Orion Music festival looming, a 3D movie in the works and a new album on the horizon, Metallica are looking to accomplish more this summer than most bands do in a career.

When Tesla first set the rock world on fire with their debut album, 1986's Mechanical Resonance, Dave Rude was 8 years old. As fate would have it, in 2006, founding Tesla guitarist Frank Hannon came across The Dave Rude Band on MySpace and asked Rude to join his band as a rhythm guitarist. That eventually led to Rude joining Tesla.

We’re both the same birth sign, and there are a lot of similarities between us. We provide each other with the creative tension we need to create better art than if we were working independently. We have a special creative nature that was revealed when we first got together in a small apartment in Brixton, London, in 1983. One example of how our relationship works is illustrated in how the song “The Wolf” came together.

On a warm California afternoon in March, John 5 is at his home in the Hollywood Hills, enjoying a day of relaxation, a rare thing in his world. Between his primary job as guitarist in Rob Zombie’s band, solo albums, guest and session appearances, and extracurricular activities like scoring the upcoming Zombie-directed horror flick The Lords of Salem, John 5 is a particularly busy man, busier at the moment, he says, than at any time in his professional life.

Since emerging in the late Nineties from the ashes and smoke of stoner-doom kings Sleep, guitarist Matt Pike has been cutting a furious swath through the heavy music scene with his stoner-thrash trio High on Fire.

On May 23, Paul Gilbert and ArtistWorks launched Rock Guitar School With Paul Gilbert, an online school that enables students of all ages and ability levels to learn directly from the Racer X and Mr. Big guitarist.

Leslie West grew up in New York City and started out as one of the original members of The Vagrants. Of course, he is best known as the guitarist for the hard rock group Mountain, who Rolling Stone once called “a louder version of Cream.” The band gave us classics like “Mississippi Queen” and “Theme from an Imaginary Western” and was credited with helping the development of heavy metal.